Before we begin, some humble pie eating needs to be done by yours truly: I dismissed a good chunk of the rumors about the Wii U as kind of ridiculous. I was pretty much wrong across the board. Also, I have to sit in the Barrel of Shame at Chodin’s party next week.

Anyway, to business. What does the Wii U cost? Nobody knows! Can you buy the controller separately? Nobody knows! It’s all crazy up in here!

First, that controller thing. Supposedly some customer rep said to a reporter that you couldn’t buy the controller separately, like, ever. This is probably a misstatement: we’re guessing the PR rep meant you can’t buy just the controller and have it work at launch, i.e. the controller is not the system, something people have been very confused about.

Not helping is the fact that the Wii U is apparently only supporting one of its wacky controllers; everybody else uses the Wiimote, and the Wii U is fully backwards compatible. So it’s kind of a Dungeon Master/player situation.

As far as cost goes, Nintendo hasn’t said anything yet, but people are insisting it can’t be $250. They’re probably right; that controller seems mighty costly. But all that means is that it probably costs more than $250: Nintendo hasn’t announced a price.

Who’d expect a console launch would be more confusing than the actual rumors?